Elog says its tally of presidential election results matches IEBC's

Elections Observation Group (Elog) has released its tally of the presidential election results, which they say matches the outcome declared by the electoral commission

Elog had dispatched 5,000 observers across all the 47 counties and 290 constituencies out of which 1,000 served as Parallel Voters Tabulation observers who were carefully recruited, specially trained and deployed to random polling stations across the country.

Group chairperson Anne Ireri said their results showed that President-elect William Ruto garnered 50.7% of the votes cast, which is almost similar to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) figure of 50.49% (7,176,141).

According to Elog, Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga got 48.7% of the votes while IEBC results showed that he got 48.85% (6,942,930) of the total votes cast finishing off second.

Ireri said Roots Party presidential candidate George Wajackoyah got 0.5% according to Elog compared to IEBC's 61,969 votes which is 0.44% of the votes.

Agano Party presidential candidate Mwaure Waihiga got 0.2%, according to Elog while IEBC announced that he got 31,987 of the votes which is 0.23% of the total votes cast.

"Elog estimates are consistent with IEBC official results for the 2022 presidential election in light with our assessment of the election day processes and given that IEBC figures fall within the projected ranges which therefore corroborates the official results with minimal error margins," said Ireri.

She said Elog projected a turnout of 65.1% and IEBC's announcement of a turnout of 65.4% falls within Elog's range.

"Having observed the electoral process over a period of time, strides towards a credible election have been made," said Ireri.

She said some of the issues that need to be addressed to improve the integrity of Kenya's elections include quick resolution of election related court cases ahead of election day, particularly those that impact election day processes.

Other issues are transparency in the integrity and maintenance of the voter register, including providing full access to the KPMG audit report and clear status updates on the uptake of recommendations from the report and also working with stakeholders to independently audit the register to improve its integrity.

"Ensuring consistent openness, transparency inclusive participation and timely access to information by the IEBC and other agencies concerned with election management and punishing electoral offences and ensuring enforcement of the code of conduct for political parties or candidates," said Ireri.

Elog recommended that IEBC conducts civic and voter education as provided by the Constitution to ensure that voters are well informed of their rights and responsibilities, maintaining simplicity and transparency of election day processes as well as accuracy and verifiability of the results management and transmission processes.

The report further recommended the reduction of election costs so as not to overburden taxpayers, ensuring the safety and security of voters, observers and other stakeholders throughout the electoral process and fidelity to the Constitution and the two thirds gender threshold.

Elog noted that IEBC failed to register the targeted six million voters through enhanced continuous voter registration exercise, but only managed to register slightly above 2.5 million voters.

"Insufficient access to key election information in the pre-election period created challenges to transparency and the ability of stakeholders to mobilise in a timely manner with the final audited voters list not made available for assessment to the public and civil society nor was the full report by KPMG," said Ireri.

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